Hello!

Hey Family,

This week we had Zone Conference and it was nice to sit back and hear how we can improve ourselves. It is so funny how many hours I spend in church meetings and studying. Right now because of the 12 week training program we study for three hours every morning! So on Sundays we go to church then study for as long as we were at church. I think that that's crazy. I figured out that I've studied for over 24 hours per month. I've spent an entire week studying the scriptures...No wonder why I've been happy even though I'm away from all of you.

Yesterday during the gospel principles class we talked about charity and an experience that I had my third transfer popped into my head that I'm not sure I shared with you. The teacher asked for examples of charity that we would like to share and I didn't get a chance to share it but it made me really happy. For Thanksgiving we ate at the Adduru's and they gave us a ton of leftover food. The other Elders in our ward dropped us off right outside our apartment. There is a burger place right near it and we looked over and a very homeless looking lady was stumbling like she was about to fall walking towards us. I think for most people your first reaction is ah quick let's get away from this dirty, strange looking person. Honestly I felt that at first. I wanted to dash into our gate and just go to bed because I was full and tired. But I looked at her and realized that we were there with a ton of food for a reason and that this person probably didn't even know it was Thanksgiving. We sat her down outside of the burger place and got her water and food. She hardly had any energy to walk over to the table but she was grateful for the food and the water. We left her with all of the food and the next morning she was gone and so was the big bag of food.

Today we had a funny and spiritually uplifting experience. We do laundry in the morning on Mondays and for some reason the change receiver on the washer got stuck. Elder Smith and Elder Mann live right next to us and Elder Smith was about to pull the thing out and get it to work. So later the other Elders were doing their laundry and it got stuck again but they couldn't get it unstuck. We were going to be late for studies if it didn't get unstuck so we stood there and said a prayer and the next pull made the washer start. It was really awesome and we were just laughing but it is really incredible how much God does care about the little things in each of our lives.

Training Elder Komarek has been good for me. It has helped me try and do my best to be a good missionary and to really think about what I can do to help him be the best he can be. It is really easy to sleep at night because I've been pretty tired! The work is going pretty well. Not awesome but not dead. Michael is working towards baptism on the 17th and we committed Sam (a former) for the 30th.

I hope everyone is still doing well! Great job to Mom, Dad and Noah for doing P90X. Tell Grammie and Grandma I said hi! I miss them!

Love,

Silas